My friend Sebastian’s father was my father’s very best friend. When Sebastian first met me he knew exactly who I was.

My father was his hero. His description of Kuros almost perfectly matches how I have heard myself described. He cut quite a dash, he was impeccably dressed and when he entered a room people took notice, he could also be very, very bad-tempered.

Not many people have very nice things to say about my father. My mother, his business colleagues, some of my brothers and sisters and their mothers all of them seem a little too ready to condemn him yet, strangely, I am not. Even though he wanted nothing to do with me and treated my Mother very badly I am still willing to forgive him. It is touching that he had such a profoundly positive effect on Sebastian.

We are without doubt very similar in temperament but unlike when I die…when he died he died very, very rich.

He was without doubt a colourful/controversial figure.

Sebastian’s father owned a restaurant in London where my father met all of his wives. I still don’t know a great deal about him but I know for sure that his second wife disappeared one night with her children never to see him again. I know that his third wife had a terrible time with his temper and cavorting. I know that he loved backgammon and opium. I have been told, although these might be myths, that he was thrown out of a second floor window by the notorious gangster Kray twins causing him to have a life long limp? That he wrapped a sports car around a lamp-post severely damaging his eye? That he was implicated in a massive robbery but never formally charged?

He certainly owned a restaurant and an antique shop and his big break came when he met a profligate Saudi Prince who bought everything my father could lay his hands on and sold to the Prince at exorbitant prices.

Isn’t it odd that whilst he owned an antique shop in London (only feet away from where I would one day live with JBC) I was trawling through the antique/junk shops in Whitstable and Canterbury. That his restaurant was only a block away from where I would settle with Phil. That we may very well have passed each other in the street and never known who one another was.

I felt as if I were not allowed to ask Sebastian questions about my father, as if the topic were still off-limits, disallowed, forbidden. There is still a huge amount of shame surrounding his name. As if even the barest mention of him a terrible catastrophe would somehow happen.

Yet, there is nothing more I need to know about him. I know that I am his son, that we are cut from the same cloth and that it scares me to hear about him because in some way I am forced to accept my own flaws/defects/shortcomings.

That, my friends, is incredibly uncomfortable.

My father died in 1998 of pancreatic cancer. I never met him although I feel as I have. A protracted and messy financial battle ensued after his death. There are all sorts of stories about who stole what from whom but my four younger siblings seemed to do OK. He left at least 8 children behind, two ex-wives (did he ever bother getting a divorce from any of them?) and a widow.

It was a pleasure discussing him with Sebastian because Sebastian has fond memories and…I believe him.

11 CommentsComments are closed.

And I thought my life had a story! wow! You amaze me………………. totally amaze me and if any of day’s I’d love to give you a huge hug, today is the day! I can’t quit reading about your life. We all have our own shoes that we walk through life wearing. Your shoes are so colorful and…………. Amazing!
You totally get life!

right with you on that one Katherine..I was lucky, my Daddy was and will always be my hero.
Whenever i have a doubt I ask him, what should I do.Even tho he has passed on 2 yrs now, I miss him and I still get answers.
My own kids dont know their Fathers, for their best interests as small children..when you look back, I still think perhaps its for the best.
D, whoever your father was, he shaped who you are and who you have become.And that has blessed us all.
My own Dad would take in any one, give him the shirt off his back and feed him, drink a glass of wine and chat about life and yard work and dogs.
Heres to all of our fathers, whether you knew them or not, we wouldnt be here if wasnt for that.

If I didnt know better I’d think your father was my ex. It must be an Iranian man thing. I will say this, you obviously got your looks and style and maybe the Iranian poetic love of language and writing.

Your father is quite handsome. He reminds me a bit — although taller — of my father, who was Portuguese, with his dark hair and olive skin. I can see that he must have been quite “the glass of fashion” to quote an old term. My dad, although a well dressed professional, could never have been called fashionable. Nor, although handsome, did he have the charisma to turn heads. He was, although not a user of opium, a “functional” alcoholic.

From what you’ve said about what you’ve heard, your father does seem to have been a rogue. Having read about the gangster Kray twins after seeing the movie, “The Krays” and the fact that they were part of “Swinging London” in the 60’s, as your father might have been with a Saudi prince as the patron of his antiques store and also, since he owned a restaurant, I find it quite possible that they would have crossed paths since the Krays were considered quite glamorous and owned a nightclub. They were also involved in protection rackets. That your father had an encounter with paranoid schizophrenic, Ronnie, and brother, Reggie, which you said you heard was over a bad debt, and only got thrown out of a window and was allowed to survive, is a miracle in itself. Until they were finally arrested in ’68, people were too terrorized in the East End to talk about the Krays or even mention their names, let alone talk to the police. They were that brutal.

I’m glad that Sebastian could give you some insight into your father. You said that he had fond memories of your father… what were they? Did they hang out, Sebastian, his father and your father? Did he hang out with your father? Were you envious?

You said “Isn’t it odd that whilst he owned an antique shop in London (only feet away from where I would one day live with JBC) I was trawling through the antique/junk shops in Whitstable and Canterbury. That his restaurant was only a block away from where I would settle with Phil. That we may very well have passed each other in the street and never known who one another was.” Perhaps the fates were kind to you. How would you have felt if after ignoring you after you were born, if you tracked him down and he snubbed you? Or with his bad temper and drug use, what if he’d acknowledged you? Do you think that it would have worked out well? Or would you have gotten on like chalk and cheese, as they say? Would you have gone to Paris, ended up in prison, become an actor… all the things that brought you to filming “A.K.A. and finally, coming to the States? I think that your life might have been very different and not necessarily for the better.

I would dispute “I know that I am his son, that we are cut from the same cloth and that it scares me to hear about him because in some way I am forced to accept my own flaws/defects/shortcomings.” Your courage to face your shortcomings through working your program comes from who you have become as a man by charting your own course. You are NOT cut from the same cloth. Whatever circumstances (nurture) led to your father’s profligate ways, his drug use and his temper, were not the circumstances of your life, whether those circumstances were better or worse than his. You share only one strand (nature) of the two that are the substance of your genetic make-up with him. The other strand is from your mother. And you have made very different choices than he did, in dealing with addiction, and especially, gaining insight into the origins of your rage and temper which he did not. You keep mentioning that he died of pancreatic cancer at 53 and I would hope that you don’t voodoo yourself into believing that you, as well, are destined for the same fate. You’re NOT. Unless of course, you decide that you want to neatly create a situation where someone can write in your epitaph that tragically, despite your very disparate lives, in the end your story merged with his and came full circle when you died at 53 of pancreatic cancer. I truly hope that you realize that whatever traits that you may seem to share on the surface with your father, that you are your own man. You always have been. AND THAT YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN FATE. It is not written in the stars or in your genes. Not for any of us. We are free. And we are powerful. We have only to acknowledge it.

He did not see all his kids. He also had a daughter called Karen he rejected. I am more interested as to why you think I would not be his son. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who meets me who knew him that I am his son.

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